Israel says carrying out ‘extensive’ strikes in Hezbollah strongholds
Hezbollah says it fired rocket at spy base, Israeli warplanes hit Lebanon again
Three killed in Israeli strike on Lebanese town in Christian-majority region, ministry says
Updated 25 September 2024
Reuters AFP
BEIRUT: The Israeli military said it was carrying out “extensive” air strikes in south Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley on Wednesday after Hezbollah fired a ballistic missile that reached the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
“The IDF (Israeli military) is currently conducting extensive strikes in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa area,” the military said in a statement.
It said it was striking Hezbollah targets and weapons storage facilities.
It also said that some 40 projectiles had crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon, setting off warning sirens in the area. “Several projectiles were intercepted,” the military said.
The Israeli military said a drone crossing into Israeli territory from Syria was intercepted by fighter jets south of the Sea of Galilee, casuing no damage or injuries.
Earlier, Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Wednesday it fired a rocket targeting Mossad spy agency headquarters near Tel Aviv, which it blamed for the assassination of its leaders and the blowing up communications devices used by its members.
There were no reports of damage or casualties and the military said there was no change to civil defense instructions for central Israel.
Three people were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese Shi'ite town of Maaysrah in the Christian-majority Keserwan region, the country's health ministry said. It was the first time the area was struck in recent hostilities between the Israeli military and Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has been conducting its heaviest air strikes of the war this week, targeting Hezbollah leaders and hitting hundreds of targets deep inside Lebanon.
An Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Qubaisi, who headed the group’s missile and rocket force.
He is one of several key figures who have been assassinated since fighting broke out between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah nearly a year ago in parallel with the Gaza war.
In response, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that killing valuable members of Lebanon's Hezbollah will not bring it to its knees.
“The organisational strength and human resources of Hezbollah is very strong and will not be critically hit by the killing of a senior commander, even if that is clearly a loss,” Khamenei said.
Israel’s offensive since Monday morning has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.
A new offensive against Hezbollah has stoked fears that conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is widening and could destabilize the Middle East.
The UN Security Council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict. “Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon – the people of Israel – and the people of the world — cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.
Half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, said Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib. He said Lebanon’s prime minister hoped to meet with US officials over the next two days.
In Beirut, thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
Israel’s military said its airforce conducted “extensive strikes” on Tuesday on Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and dozens of launchers that were aimed at Israeli territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attacks had weakened Hezbollah and would continue. Hezbollah “has suffered a sequence of blows to its command and control, its fighters, and the means to fight. These are all severe blows,” he told Israeli troops.
Qatar PM urges world to ‘stop using double standards’ and punish Israel
Israeli airstrikes widely condemned across Arab, Islamic world as violation of Qatar’s sovereignty
Prince Faisal bin Farhan heads Kingdom’s delegation at emergency summit in Doha
Updated 42 min 13 sec ago
Arab News
RIYADH: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani urged the international community on Sunday to “stop using double standards” and punish Israel for what he described as its “crimes.”
He was speaking at a preparatory meeting on the eve of an emergency summit of Arab and Islamic leaders organized by Qatar after Israel carried out an unprecedented air strike on Hamas leaders in Doha.
“The time has come for the international community to stop using double standards and to punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed, and Israel needs to know that the ongoing war of extermination that our brotherly Palestinian people is being subjected to, and whose aim is to expel them from their land, will not work,” the prime minister said.
The preparatory meeting of foreign ministers for the emergency joint Arab-Islamic summit commenced on Sunday in Doha under Sheikh Mohammed’s leadership.
The summit is to discuss a draft statement regarding the Israeli attack on Qatar on Sept. 9, which targeted the residences of several Hamas officials in Doha, according to the Qatar News Agency.
The airstrikes, which left several dead and wounded, were widely condemned across the Arab and Islamic world as a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and international law.
Foreign ministers of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation member states are attending the summit on Sunday, including Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced the Israeli attack as an “aggressive act” and reiterated the Kingdom’s solidarity with Doha, stressing the need for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its actions, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Jordanian medical teams’ efforts to treat Palestinians continue
60-year-old patient had complex comminuted fracture of humerus, severe tissue damage
Family thanks King Abdullah II, commends field hospital’s staff
Updated 14 September 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Medical teams from Jordan conducted a complex operation on a 60-year-old patient at a field hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, as part of humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
The patient had a comminuted fracture of the humerus, along with severe tissue damage. The hospital commander said the operation involved specialized surgeons, along with operating and anesthesia technicians. The patient’s injury involved missing bone that hindered healing, he added.
An orthopedic surgeon explained that the patient had dead and infected tissue removed, the bone stabilized with plates and screws, and grafts from the pelvis and fibula used to fill the gap and support recovery, according to the Jordan News Agency.
The patient’s family thanked King Abdullah II of Jordan and praised the field hospital’s staff for their efforts to mitigate the impact of the conflict on Gaza’s population.
A new Jordanian field hospital began operating in Gaza in August, offering medical services in various specialties to support the Palestinian health sector.
Jordan has been at the forefront of providing humanitarian aid and food supplies to Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the Israeli attacks in October 2023, whether through aid convoys or airdrops.
Paramilitary drones hit key sites in Sudan’s south: army official
Multiple paramilitary drones attacked key army positions and civilian infrastructure in Sudan’s south on Sunday, an army official told AFP, just a week after similar strikes hit the capital
Updated 14 September 2025
AFP
KHARTOUM: Multiple paramilitary drones attacked key army positions and civilian infrastructure in Sudan’s south on Sunday, an army official told AFP, just a week after similar strikes hit the capital.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a brutal war between the regular armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and displacing millions.
Sunday’s strikes targeted the headquarters of the Sudanese army’s 18th Division, along with fuel depots on the western bank of the Nile, east of the army-held city of Kosti in White Nile state, the official said.
Additional attacks hit the Kenana air base and airport, located southeast of Kosti, while drones also struck the Um Dabakir power station, east of the city, the official added on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Eyewitnesses in Kosti, located some 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Khartoum, reported extremely loud explosions during the attacks.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks and the extent of the damage remains unclear.
An army spokesman separately said that a number of paramilitary drones targeted early Saturday facilities in El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state.
Army air defenses intercepted the drones on El-Obeid, located about 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) southwest of Khartoum, the spokesman said, adding that no casualties were reported.
The army did not specify which facilities were targeted.
The attacks come days after a wave of RSF drone strikes targeted key infrastructure and army installations in and around Khartoum, including a power station, an oil refinery, a weapons factory and an air base.
The RSF’s Tasis administration, which has declared itself the governing authority in paramilitary-held areas, later claimed responsibility, describing them as “precise and successful air strikes.”
Following the army’s recapture of the capital in March, the RSF has increasingly used drones to attack army-controlled areas, often targeting critical infrastructure and causing widespread power outages affecting millions.
Efforts to broker a ceasefire between warring parties have so far failed.
On Saturday, Sudan’s army-aligned government pushed back against a new peace proposal from four influential foreign powers — the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
The proposal called for a humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a transition toward civilian rule.
The four nations also suggested that no warring party should be included in the post-war transition — a proposal swiftly rejected by the government.
Sudan’s current state institutions remain under army control.
The conflict has effectively split the country, with the army holding the north, east and center, while the RSF dominates parts of the south and nearly all of the western Darfur region.
Netanyahu gambled by targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar. It appears to have backfired
The airstrike has enraged Qatar, an influential US ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, and drawn heavy criticism across the Arab world
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that after the strike, “I don’t think there’s anything valid” in the current talks
Updated 14 September 2025
AP
JERUSALEM: When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered this week’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Qatar, he took a major gamble in his campaign to pound the group into submission.
With signs growing that the mission failed, that gamble appears to have backfired.
Netanyahu had hoped to kill Hamas’ senior exiled leaders to get closer toward his vision of “total victory” against the militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and pressure it into surrendering after nearly two years of war in the Gaza Strip.
Instead, Hamas claims its leaders survived, and Netanyahu’s global standing, already badly damaged by the scenes of destruction and humanitarian disaster in Gaza, took another hit.
This frame grab taken from an AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after an Israeli airstrike in Qatar's capital Doha on September 9, 2025. (AFP)
The airstrike Tuesday has enraged Qatar, an influential US ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, and drawn heavy criticism across the Arab world. It also has strained relations with the White House and thrown hopes of reaching a ceasefire into disarray, potentially endangering the 20 hostages still believed to be alive in Gaza.
But while the strike marks a setback for Netanyahu, the Israeli leader shows no sign of backing down or halting the war. And with his hard-line coalition still firmly behind him, Netanyahu faces no immediate threat to his rule.
Netanyahu’s hope for an ‘image of victory’ for his government
Five low-level Hamas members and a Qatari security guard were killed in the strike. But Hamas has said the intended target, senior exiled leaders meeting to discuss a new US ceasefire proposal, all survived. The group, however, has not released any photos of the leaders, and Qatar has not commented on their conditions.
If the airstrike had killed the top leadership, the attack could have provided Netanyahu an opportunity declare Hamas’ destruction, said Harel Chorev, an expert on Arab affairs at Tel Aviv University.
“It’s all very symbolic and it’s definitely part of the thing which allows Netanyahu at a certain point to say ‘We won, we killed them all,’” he said.
Israel’s fierce 23-month offensive in Gaza has wiped out all of Hamas’ top leadership inside the territory. But Netanyahu has set out to eradicate the group as part of his goal of “total victory.”
Displaced Palestinians evacuate southbound from Gaza City, traveling on foot and by vehicle, along the coastal road in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on September 13, 2025, amid another Israeli military offensive. (AFP)
That is now looking increasingly unlikely, making it even harder for Netanyahu to push a ceasefire through his hard-line coalition.
Far-right members of Israel’s governing coalition have cornered Netanyahu, threatening to topple his government unless Israel pushes ahead with an expanded operation in Gaza City, despite serious misgivings by many in the military leadership and widespread opposition among Israel’s public.
A successful operation in Qatar could have allowed Netanyahu to placate the hard-liners, even though it would have eliminated the very officials responsible for negotiating a possible ceasefire.
Burning the channel with Qatar
Israel has had the ability to target Hamas leaders in Doha from the start of the war but did not want to antagonize the Qataris while negotiations took place, Chorev said.
Qatar has helped negotiate two previous ceasefires that have released 148 hostages, including eight bodies, in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s military has rescued just eight hostages alive, and retrieved the bodies of 51 hostages.
While Israel has complained that Qatar was not putting pressure on Hamas, it had continued to leave that channel open — until Tuesday.
“Israel, by the attack, notified the whole world that it gave up on the negotiations,” Chorev said. “They’ve decided to burn the channel with Qatar.”
Asked if ceasefire talks would continue, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that after the strike, “I don’t think there’s anything valid” in the current talks. But he did not elaborate and stopped short of saying Qatar would end its mediation efforts.
How Netanyahu hopes to win the release of the remaining hostages remains unclear.
Protesters join a demonstration at 'Hostage Square' in Tel Aviv on September 13, 2025, calling on Israel for a ceasefire in its war on Gaza so as not to endanger the lives of the captives captives still in the hands of Palestinian militants. (AFP)
On Thursday, Sheikh Mohammed accused Israel of abandoning the hostages.
“Extremists that rule Israel today do not care about the hostages — otherwise, how do we justify the timing of this attack?” Sheikh Mohammed told the UN Security Council.
Nonetheless, he said his country was ready to resume its mediation without giving any indication of next steps. On Friday, Sheikh Mohammed met in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was scheduled to visit Israel this weekend in a sign of how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies.
Straining ties with the US
Netanyahu, who has received ironclad support from the US since President Donald Trump returned to office, appears to have strained ties with his most important ally.
Trump said he was “very unhappy” about the airstrike and assured the Qataris such an attack would not happen again.
Trump, however, has not said whether he would take any punitive action against Israel or indicated that he will pressure Netanyahu to halt the war.
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Protesters join a demonstration at 'Hostage Square' in Tel Aviv on September 13, 2025, calling on Israel for a ceasefire in its war on Gaza so as not to endanger the lives of the captives captives still in the hands of Palestinian militants. (AFP)
etanyahu, in the meantime, remains undeterred and threatened additional action if Qatar continues to host the Hamas leadership.
The message to Hamas is clear, he said Thursday: “There is no place where we cannot reach you.”
Little impact on the war in Gaza
Israel is pressing ahead with its expanded offensive aimed at conquering Gaza City. The military has urged a full evacuation of the area holding around 1 million people ahead of an expected invasion.
“Netanyahu’s government is adamant to go on with the military operation in Gaza,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Israel has brushed off calls to halt the war from the United Nations, the European Union and a growing number of major Western countries who plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council later this month, she said.
The only one who might be able to change this trajectory is Trump, she added, by telling Israel “enough is enough.”
Netanyahu’s political future unthreatened
If Hamas’ leaders survived, and the negotiations collapse, Netanyahu will further alienate the roughly two-thirds of the Israeli public who want an end to the war and a deal to bring home the hostages.
But that opposition has been in place for months, with little influence on Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu’s future in the near term doesn’t depend on the Israeli public,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
Instead, his political survival depends on his governing coalition, many of whom have expressed wholehearted support for the assassination attempt.
This has sparked panic and more suffering for the families of the hostages still held in Gaza.
Einav Zangauker, whose son, Matan, is among the captives, said this week she was “shaking with fear” after hearing about Israel’s attack in Doha.
“Why does the prime minister insist on blowing up every chance for a deal?” she asked, on the verge of tears. “Why?”
Rubio in Israel in wake of Qatar attack, Israeli strikes intensify in northern Gaza
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite Trump’s anger at Netanyahu over the Israeli strike in Doha
Foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic nations were to meet in Doha on Sunday to forge a united front about the Israeli attack ahead of a summit in Qatar on Monday
Updated 14 September 2025
AP
JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel on Sunday as its military intensified attacks on northern Gaza, flattening multiple high-rise building and killing at least 13 Palestinians.
Rubio said ahead of the trip that he will be seeking answers from Israeli officials about how they see the way forward in Gaza following Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar last week that upended efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
His two-day visit is also a show of support for the increasingly isolated Israel as the United Nations holds what is expected to be a contentious debate next week on commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Rubio visits Israel despite anger over Qatar attack
Rubio’s visit went ahead despite President Donald Trump’s anger at Netanyahu over the Israeli strike in Doha, which he said the United States was not notified of beforehand.
On Sunday, Netanyahu, Rubio and their wives, along with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife, toured the Western Wall and the excavated tunnels near it.
“I think his (Rubio’s) visit here is a testament to the durability, the strength of the Israeli-American alliance. It’s as strong and as durable as the stones of the Western Wall we just touched,” Netanyahu said.
On Friday, Rubio and Trump met with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the fallout from the Israeli operation. The dual, back-to-back meetings with Israel and Qatar illustrate how Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies despite the attack’s widespread international condemnation.
The Doha attack, which killed at least six people, also appears to have ended attempts to secure an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly session, at which the Gaza war is expected to be a primary focus.
Meanwhile, foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic nations were to meet in Doha on Sunday to forge a united front about the Israeli attack ahead of a summit in Qatar on Monday that will bring together leaders from their nations for top-level talks.
Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar were also set to address Monday a large bipartisan delegation of American legislators visiting Israel for meetings and political discussions.
Deadly airstrikes mount
On Sunday, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded in multiple Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Local hospitals said Israeli strikes targeted a vehicle near Shifa hospital and a roundabout in Gaza City, and a tent in the city of Deir Al-Balah that killed at least six members of the same family.
Two parents, their three children and the children’s aunt were killed in that strike, according to the Al-Aqsa hospital. The family was from the northern town of Beit Hanoun, and arrived in Deir Al-Balah last week after fleeing their shelter in Gaza City
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strikes.
As part of its expanding operation in Gaza City, the military destroyed multiple high-rise buildings Sunday, after warning residents to evacuate. Some were destroyed less than an hour after an evacuation order was posted online by the military spokesman Avichay Adraee.
The military said that Hamas had positioned observation posts and ways to gather intelligence about troop movement in the area, and that Hamas militants were poised to strike Israeli troops, though it provided no evidence to support those claims. The military also said that, in addition to advance warnings, it used precise munitions and aerial surveillance to reduce the chance of harm to civilians.
The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip systematically violate international law, brutally exploiting civilian infrastructure and the Gazan population as human shields for terrorist activities.
The IDF will continue to operate against the terrorist organizations
Residents said the Kauther tower in the Rimal neighborhood was flattened to the ground. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
“This is part of the genocidal measures the (Israeli) occupation is carrying out in Gaza City,” said Abed Ismail, a Gaza City resident. “They want to turn the whole city into rubble, and force the transfer and another Nakba.”
The word Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe and refers to when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel, before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.
Israeli strongly denies accusations of genocide in Gaza.
“The skyline of Gaza is changing,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X along with footage of the strikes that destroyed one of the buildings.
Starvation in Gaza
Separately, two Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and starvation in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry reported Sunday.
That has brought the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 277 since late June, when the ministry started to count fatalities among this age category, while another 145 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.
The Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza said that over 1,200 trucks carrying aid, primarily food, entered into Gaza over the past week.
Aid workers say the aid that does get into Gaza is far too little and insufficient for the territory’s enormous needs. Much of it is also looted before it can reach the Palestinians in desperate need.
International teams also finished repair work on a water line from Israel to Gaza, one of three water lines from Israel to Gaza, increasing the daily amount of water coming into Gaza from Israel to 14,000 cubic meters (3.7 million gallons).
Over the 23 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza’s water access has been progressively limited and the strip is now enduring a second scorching summer in wartime. Parents and children often chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 Israel believes are still alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,871 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed and around 90 percent of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.
